A World War I Photo Essay
| Mobilization--August 1914
|
 French Soldiers, also joined by civilians, on their way to Berlin Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc003.htm |
 Russian soldiers with band in St. Petersburg. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc003.htm |
 Berlin students on their way to enlist. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc003.htm |
 British hordes swamp the recruiting office. This would augment their small professional army with much needed manpower. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc003.htm |
| The Somme, 1916
|
 The legendary Krupp's Big Bertha, a German 42cm howitzer of the type used to crush the Belgian fortresses in 1914. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc005.htm |
 German 17cm gun on rail mount. The recoil would propel the carriage 100 feet down the siding. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc005.htm |
 German soldier standing next to a giant rail gun shell. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc005.htm |
 Preparing to "hop the bags" outside Beaumont Hamel. 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusliers. 1 July, 1916. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc001.htm |
 Tending the wounded of the 1st Lancashire Fusliers. 1 July, 1916. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc001.htm |
 Evacuating an early casualty. 1 July, 1916. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc001.htm |
 The results of artillery bombardment. The once tree-lined road to Guillemont. August, 1916. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc001.htm |
 The devastation of Delville Wood. September, 1916. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc001.htm |
 British outpost in Flanders. Online source: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/bin06/imag0536.jpg |
 Belgian refugees near Aydenarde. Online source: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/bin02/imag0157.jpg |
 Péronne during the Battle of the Somme, 1916--Robert Carlson. "Don't be angry, just be amazed," was the calling card left by Germans on the destroyed town hall of Péronne after their withdrawal to the Hindenberg Line. The sign is on display in Péronne today in the Historial de la grande guerre. Online source: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/bin02/imag0166.jpg |
 American railroad artillery detachment posed on a 14in. rail gun near Bassons, Gironde, France after the war. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc005.htm |
 American navel ordnance on wheels; a 14in., 30 mile gun. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc005.htm |
 British heavy artillery on the move. This was the alternative to rail transport. The First World War was a war of artillery. Artillery was the greatest killer, the major cause of trench deadlock and, eventually, massively augmented, the principal instrument of victory. Heavy howitzers, with their steep angle of fire, were particularly effective in destroying field fortifications. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc005.htm |
| The Ypres Salient, 1917
|
 Canadian 4th Division, Passchendaele, 14 November, 1917. Soldiers in mud holes. The wettest summer in memory made Haig's hope of a breakthrough at Passchendaele a nightmare for those who endured the battle. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 Identifying a fallen comrade, Chateau Wood. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 Duckboards through Chateau Wood. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 The effects of rain and artillery. Canadian 2nd Division, Passchendaele, 4 November, 1917. The featureless and empty battlefield came increasingly to characterize the war on the Western Front from 1915 onwards. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 An Australian trench at Messines Ridge. The killing power of modern industrial technology forced soldiers to take to the earth and live in squalor and discomfort like primitive man in order to survive. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 A German pillbox knocked out of action at Messines Ridge. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 British strectcher bearers. Pilckem Ridge (near Boesinghe), 1 August, 1917. Slogging through mud, they struggle to bring a wounded man out of the line. Casualty evacuation on First World War battlefields was extremely difficult at all times and never more so than during the notorious "Passchendaele" campaign. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 Ypres in the fall of 1917. A town destroyed by three years of fighting. German artillery turned Ypres' medieval Cloth Hall and adjacent buildings into pillars of rubble. The Belgian town was at the base of a British salient, pointing north-east into German lines. This salient was the site of four major battles known as Passchendeale; each resulted in bloody stalemate. In 1918, the German army pushed the British back, but could not break the British lines. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 British infantry knee deep in mud. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 Osttaverne Wood, June 1917. Online source: http://www.worldwar1.com/pharc002.htm |
 World War I tank. Online source: http://www.amug.org/~avishai/WWI.html |
 German cemetery at Bethune. Online source: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/bin07/imag0627.jpg |
 Dead French soldiers in the Argonne. Many soldiers developed a defensive callousness after seeing such sights frequently, and blotted these images out of their conscious minds for ever. Online source: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/bin03/imag0267.jpg |
 Americans burying their dead, Bois de Consenvoye, France, November 8, 1918. Online source: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/bin08/imag0754.jpg |
 German remains at Verdun. Online source: http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/photos/bin11/imag1034.jpg |
Return to World War I
